In The Trenches

Perth’s property market has experienced extraordinary growth, but with listings rising and buyer activity beginning to slow, is the boom finally starting to cool?   In this episode, Perth real estate agent Prash Nayar joins us to break down the current state of the Perth property market, including housing supply, property prices, buyer confidence, negative gearing, interstate investors, population...

Is Bitcoin’s four-year cycle coming to an end, or is the crypto market simply moving through another painful phase of the cycle?   In this episode, Pav Hundal, Lead Market Analyst at Swyftx, joins Hanif to discuss the current state of Bitcoin, crypto markets, investor sentiment, and what may come next for digital assets.   We explore whether Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is still relevant, why market...

Menopause affects every woman, yet for many people, it’s still a conversation shrouded in confusion, silence, and a lack of information.   In this episode of In the Trenches, Dr Julia Rawlinson joins the podcast to unpack the realities of perimenopause and menopause, the symptoms many women experience years before diagnosis, and why so many suffer in silence without realising what’s happening.   J...

Leadership is tested in the everyday standards we set, the people we hire, and the culture we allow to grow.   In this episode of In the Trenches , Stephen Connell, CEO of MAD3 Engineering, shares hard-earned lessons on leadership, accountability, workplace culture, and building high-performance teams.   Stephen unpacks why “what you walk past, you accept” is more than a saying - it’s a leadership...

Artificial intelligence is changing how businesses create, protect, and lose intellectual property. Most business owners are operating blind to the legal risks — and the opportunity — that AI introduces into their operations right now. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim welcomes back Juan Perez, IP lawyer and founder of Quest Legal, for a timely and deeply practical conversation abo...

Most leaders think they're communicating well. Their teams think otherwise. And that gap — invisible to the person at the top — is where trust erodes, performance suffers, and culture quietly breaks down. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Alan Sherwood for a sharp, evidence-informed conversation about why communication is the most underestimated skill in leadership —...

What if the answer to our farming crisis has been sitting in our waste all along? In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Greg Watts, CEO of C-Wise, for a fascinating conversation at the intersection of environmental science, agricultural economics, and the kind of systems-level thinking that can genuinely change industries. Greg's company turns organic byproducts — things...

Something is changing for young men — and the data, the conversations, and the front-line experience of people working with them points to a real and growing challenge. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Mark Boulton from Arakan Martial Art for an honest, nuanced conversation about the struggles many young men are facing today — from social isolation and gaming addict...

Australia is entering one of the largest defence and shipbuilding booms in its history. And most business owners have no idea what it means for them. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Fred Bkamdin — National Business Growth Manager at Energy Power Systems Australia and President of the Australian Industry & Defence Network WA — to unpack one of the most significa...

A year is a long time in economics. A lot has changed — and some things, frustratingly, haven't. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim welcomes back Daniel Gradwell — ANZ Economist and Associate Director of Property — for a return visit nearly 12 months after his debut on Episode 1. The timing is deliberate: a check-in, a recalibration, and a fresh read on where the Australian economy...

Digital exchanges have opened up extraordinary investment opportunities. They've also opened up extraordinary opportunities for scammers — who are getting smarter, more sophisticated, and more convincing every year. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Gabby Lewis, Head of Fraud and Financial Crime at Swyftx, for an eye-opening breakdown of how modern fraudsters are tar...

Most business owners are sitting on valuable intellectual property and have no idea. And by the time they realise it, someone else may have already claimed it. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Juan Perez, IP lawyer and founder of Quest Legal, for a conversation that will completely change how you think about your brand, your systems, and your business's most underva...

Frank Moscow was there near the beginning — when Silicon Valley ran on hardware, software was an afterthought, and computer engineering required punch cards. Four decades later, he's watching something different: a rate of change that has no historical precedent. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Frank Moscow for a rare, wide-angle view of artificial intelligence — n...

Your P&L says you're profitable. Your bank account says otherwise. Sound familiar? In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Greg Smargiassi, Founder and CEO of OURCFO, for one of the most practically valuable financial conversations this show has produced. Greg has seen inside hundreds of businesses — and the pattern he sees most often is owners who are busy, growing, e...

You're doing everything you were told. Eating less, moving more, trying to sleep better. And you still feel exhausted, foggy, and stuck. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with David Beard — Accredited Exercise Physiologist with over four decades of experience in metabolic health — for a conversation that challenges the fitness advice most of us grew up with. David explain...

Most annual plans are dead by February. Not because the goals were wrong — because the planning process was. In this Season 2 opener of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim and producer Jeremy sit down to do something rare: an honest, practical conversation about planning — not as an abstract exercise, but as the operational discipline that separates businesses that grow from businesses that drift. This...

After 26 conversations with founders, executives, operators, coaches, and experts — the In The Trenches team sat down to pull out the moments that actually changed how they think. This year-in-review episode is not a highlight reel. It's a distillation — 13 of the sharpest, most honest, most useful insights from across the season, presented without commentary or hype. Just real voices. Real moment...

You understand the basics. Now it's time to talk about actually getting started — and doing it properly. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim welcomes back Joe Shew from the Crypto Consulting Institute for Part Two of the cryptocurrency series — the practical guide to entering the market as a new investor in 2026. This is the episode for anyone who's ready to move from curious to comm...

Before an attacker can break your business, an ethical hacker tries to get there first. What they find — and how they think — will change how you understand security. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Matt Breuillac — an ethical hacker — for a genuinely eye-opening conversation about the world of penetration testing, cyber vulnerability, and what happens when the goo...

Cryptocurrency is no longer a fringe conversation. It's a legitimate asset class, a payment infrastructure, and a business consideration that a growing number of owners can no longer afford to ignore. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Joe Shew from the Crypto Consulting Institute for a clear, jargon-free introduction to cryptocurrency — built specifically for busines...

Narcissism doesn't just show up in toxic relationships. It shows up in boardrooms, partnerships, leadership teams, and client dynamics — and most people don't recognise it until significant damage has been done. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with David Szczecinski for a genuinely eye-opening conversation about narcissistic personality traits, how they manifest in prof...

Everyone talks about leadership. Very few people actually understand what makes it work — or why most leaders unconsciously undermine the very people they're trying to lead. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim continues his conversation with Ted Thacker, going deeper into the mechanics of great leadership — what it actually looks like in practice, what separates the best from the res...

The voice in your head is either your greatest asset or your worst enemy. For most people, it's the latter — and they've never been taught how to change it. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Ted Thacker for a raw, practical conversation about the role of self-talk and internal narrative in shaping business outcomes, personal performance, and everyday decision-making....

Buying your first home is one of the biggest financial decisions you'll ever make. Most people walk into it significantly underprepared — and it costs them. In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Paula Abbott, an experienced mortgage broker, for a practical, honest guide to everything first home buyers need to understand before they start searching. This isn't a theoretic...

What does it take to turn a backyard obsession into a legitimate business — and then scale it beyond what most people think is possible in a trade? In this episode of In The Trenches, Hanif Ibrahim sits down with Brent Mortimer to explore the surprising, instructive, and genuinely fascinating world of building a business in the lawn care and turf industry. Brent's story challenges assumptions abou...